Middle East crypto exchange Rain secures $6m in funding

Parent company Rain Financial is backed by Coinbase and Middle East Venture Partners

Bitcoin was down 6.3% at 7.06pm on Sunday but has enjoyed a fourfold increase in value against the US dollar over the past 12 months. Reuters

Rain Financial, operator of the Rain cryptocurrency exchange licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain, secured $6 million in funding in a round led by Middle East Venture Partners.

The company also received backing from US-based Coinbase, one of the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, Vision Ventures, CMT Digital Ventures, Abdul Latif Jameel FinTech Ventures, and the Dubai International Financial Centre's FinTech Fund, according to a statement issued on Sunday.

“We are confident that our investors, who are regional and international leaders, will support us as we continue to drive towards our vision of reaching mass adoption of crypto-assets,” the company's four co-founders Abdullah Almoaiqel, AJ Nelson, Joseph Dallago and Yehia Badawy, said in a joint statement.

Rain Financial was set up in 2017 and received a licence to operate as a crypto-asset brokerage by Bahrain's central bank in 2019. The company offers its customers a way to buy and sell digital currencies as well as custodian services to hold their assets.

Interest in digital currencies is picking up again as the price of Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency by market value, has soared. Although it was trading 6.3 per cent lower at 7.04pm on the Bitstamp exchange on Sunday at $34,852.52, it has witnessed a near-fourfold increase in value over the past 12 months. One Bitcoin now trades at 19-times the dollar price of gold per ounce, down from a record of 21.6x at the end of last week.

“As crypto-assets continue to grow and transform into a recognised asset class, regional retail and institutional investors alike need a localised, safe and regulated fiat-to-crypto" exchange, MEVP junior partner Riyad Abou Jaoudeh said.